Let me take you back to 2007, when Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs first introduced the world to the iPhone. At one point, he reached the subject of touch input. "Who wants a stylus? You have to get 'em and put 'em away, and you lose 'em. Yuck. Nobody wants a stylus. So let's not use a stylus." And with those few lines, he split the touchscreen world into two camps: finger input and stylus input. For a long time, there were debates about which is better. It's safe to say that the finger has come out on top, like Jobs predicted. But there's one mistake he made: You don't have to choose between the two.

No Apple touchscreen product ships with a stylus as the company still believes your finger is the best pointing device around. And that's fair. But it's silly to think that it's the best pointing device for every use case scenario. Have you tried sketching with your finger, or writing notes with it?

Much like with any debate between extremes, the answer to "Which is better, the finger or the stylus?" lay in a middle path that didn't make the user choose a camp, and instead empowered him with the best of both. That's what Samsung has done with the S-Pen and its software add-ons for the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet. It's good enough to make me believe tablets should ideally come with a built-in stylus.

80% Finger, 20% Stylus

Even with the Note 10.1, you will end up using your finger for 80% of your tasks. The thing is, that stylus fills a gap for the 20% which you can't do well on an iPad or other tablets. These are simple, everyday tasks.

You walk into a meeting and you need to take notes—wouldn't it be helpful to take those notes on a tablet and have it auto-convert them into digital text, so you can search through them later? That's what the S-Pen does with the Action Memo.

You need to quickly open a calculator as a floating window in a specific part of the screen while working on your spreadsheet? Samsung's Air Command has a "Pen Window" feature just for that.

You're an artist who wants to sketch? There's plenty of great apps built-in and the S-Pen is pressure-sensitive, making it easier to draw.

Good hardware always needs to be complemented by good software and Samsung has demonstrated this